


if i could have but a blessing

by Goose_Boy



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, F/M, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Lack of Communication, M/M, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Boy/pseuds/Goose_Boy
Summary: Geralt brought the colors with him; it was only fair that Jaskier took them when he left.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Istredd/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 25
Kudos: 475
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	1. For golden sunlight burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saintsurvivor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/gifts).



> Beta'd by mukur0, written because I have no self control and like to cause pain. It'll get worse before it gets better, lovelies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like my stuff, why not buy me a cup of coffee?  
> https://ko-fi.com/goose_boy

The weight of his crown had been a constant throughout his life. 

Nothing ever particularly worthwhile as far as he was concerned, but he knew the semblance and ceremony of it anyway. His valet always put it on his skull with the same practiced ease, a simple song and dance that the two of them had spent years knowing. He knew how he needed to keep his spine straight and his shoulders broad beneath it, posture meant everything when balancing the curve of metal and gemstones. Just the same, he knew how far he could tip his head with a fit of courtly disdain and a carefully caught sneer before it shifted, before Sigibald sighed and reached out to right it once more. 

Where his closest friend knew just how to set it so he had some degree of freedom beneath the weight, his mother had never been quite so gifted.

She had never been loving by any means, cool eyes and forever elegant and just out of reach. Artfully coiffed hair styled around the spindling floral spill of her crown, gowns of glimmering silks and velvets that clung just off the pale round of her shoulders. He had never seen her as anything less than perfect, never a hair out of place or a jewel laid just so. He could hear her coming from the sounds of her slippers on the stone floor, the soft swish of her train sliding behind her. The footfalls of her ladies in waiting always heralded her arrival, no moment between them had ever been private in any regard, he was always given warning to collect and prepare himself before she even rounded the corner. 

She had never dressed herself, not in her thirty something years of life. It showed in how she didn’t know how to straighten his collar, how she wasn’t necessarily sure which way his cloak was supposed to lay. The brilliant colors faced inwards, delicate spiderweb silks in the brightest of blues that played peekaboo with the rest of the world. She had insisted on draping it upon his shoulders herself once, had laid the rich cream of the exterior against his spine and ribs so that the vibrant turquoise stood on vivid display to the room. Sigibald had barely choked back a distressed groan and he had bit at his own cheek to hold his tongue in the presence of his Queen mother. 

She had never dressed herself, she knew naught for how to dress her children, and she had never once donned her own crown. She felt some sort of obligation from time to time to be the one to put his own on him, like some strange passing fancy of maternal instinct had welled itself up inside of her like a dam fit to burst. Just as she could never manage his clothes, she never knew quite how to settle his crown, would lay it far too gently on his curls like she thought it might break at the slightest touch. Too far back on his skull until he couldn’t give a scathing, controlled toss of his head like he had always enjoyed, and if he stood with too proud of posture he could feel it threaten to slide down between his shoulderblades for the floor. His hands would ache to correct it, set it where he knew it needed to be and he would instead thread his fingers behind his back, eyes downcast toward her skirts and a knee taken where he had already proven taller than she. 

Fourteen and he had sprouted like a weed, almost overnight as Velissa would affectionately tease him.

He couldn’t correct it until she had gone, couldn’t try to fix it until the sound of her footsteps faded down the hall and her ladies went with her. It would have been an insult to do it in her presence, he couldn’t shame her for his ill-placed crown just like he couldn’t flaunt her lack of color to her face by fixing his cape. She never wore blue, and he had made the mistake only once of asking her why, barely five years old but still he could remember how her eyes had shuttered, her expression smooth like glass. 

She had never physically struck him, but her icy reminder of the words Destiny had given him had been punishment enough to remember his place.

This time was no different, her fingers didn’t linger in his hair or at his shoulders, and he had to tilt his head down toward her when he finally rose. She had balanced it precariously on the back of his skull so he could feel it shift every time that he breathed. Sigibald already looked strained over by the window, like it took some great piece of his soul from him to not immediately cross and correct the mistake. A touch to his chest, something almost like a smile as if she could ever manage such a thing, her dress billowed with folds of grey silk that must have been something different. 

“Be a dear and remember yourself today.”

Painted smile of deep charcoal and she turned with a flutter of silk to sway out of the doorway. Aleyda and Mira followed quickly behind, rustling skirts and bowed heads as they scurried after their Queen. The door shut, the silence settled once their footfalls had faded, he could breathe properly again, and Sigibald rushed forward. 

Unable to help his laughter, head falling back at the frustration on his friend and servant’s face, and there went that weight. It fell quick, tumbled down his shoulders where he hadn’t been given his cape yet and nothing could catch it. Certainly not Sigibald though the older boy tried, and the metal  _ ting _ of the crown striking the stone floor echoed beneath his laughter. 

“ _ Julian _ !”

Less like a scandal and more like a familiar scolding, the young Prince laughed and grinned as the other scooped his precious crown off the floor. No dents, no loose stones, no worse for wear than any other time it had been dropped or tossed or knocked from his head. Surely this was the least traumatic tumble that crown had ever taken, and Julian laughed even as he dropped himself onto the lounge before the west window. Watched Sigibald turn it this way and that to inspect it, grey metal inlaid with grey gems that glittered like glass. 

Evidently the curling metal was  _ gold _ , the stones set into it  _ rubies _ , but they looked empty like his mother's dress and the paint his sisters put on their smiles. Why should he mourn for the fall of something that he couldn’t see?

“You ought to at least  _ pretend _ to care.”

Eyes rolling, body falling against the arm of the chaise with a put upon sigh, Julian dragged his fingers across the blue fabric. His scoff carried the weight of fourteen years of not caring all bundled up beneath it, but his companion knew better than to take it personally. 

“She only bothered because it’s Velissa’s betrothal announcement today.”

A soft frown in a pale face, Sigibald stood between the leisurely sprawl of his knees to set his crown where it belonged. Its weight nothing more than a decorative shackle where his brain insisted the two were colored the same, pounded out the same and therefore they must have been the same. It felt like a shackle if ever he had known one, the ceremonial curve of it as damning as any chain he could have worn, and the spill of light from the blue sky beyond the window seemed to dim. 

“Don’t be daft, we both know you’re smarter than that.”

“Sigi, do you forget that I need not be smart?” Toothy grin that he didn’t feel, Julian tipped his head up when familiar fingers pressed to the underside of his jaw. “I need to be presentable.”

He looked older when he frowned like that, like he’d been given some great task more than dressing the Prince every day and reminding him of when to eat, when to scurry off for his lessons. What a chore it must have been, to be friends with a caged bird that wanted nothing more than to throw itself from the ramparts and flee as fast and far as it could. Yet Sigibald took to his duty with poise, far more of it than Julian could say he took to his own fittings or his lessons. He had to pull his patience from the example of the older boy, breathe as the other did when he wanted to shut his eyes against the aristocratic drone of court. 

“This crown is made from Zerrikanian gold and rubies from the Silk Islands. Your mother and father expect you to understand the sacrifice of it and wear it like the honor it is even if we both know better.”

Warm, dark brown eyes, that frown pulled to a smile just as sad that Julian wished he wasn’t familiar with. 

“We both know that it looks like a shackle to me, Sigibald, and that’s all it’ll ever be.”

-

Julian was fourteen and seven weeks when he got to Oxenfurt, and the whole world bloomed with music and laughter. No valet to dress and dictate and keep him in check, no crown to weigh down his head or signify who he was. He could laugh, he could run, toss his head however he cared and run through the streets of a city that didn’t know him because he had no crown here. Anybody and nobody all at once, a beautiful, freeing feeling that he had never been allowed to know before. There were no rules here, none that applied like the heavy cloak of them that he’d grown up under, and he’d never felt freer within his own skin. 

He had a roommate, a boy three years older than he with black hair and dark eyes, a voice that curled like smoke over water. Civa laughed at him when he didn’t wake up on time, smacked him aside the head with pillows when he kept his candles burning past a respectable time. He threatened the lute that his parents didn’t know he had ever had, he left Julian behind when it was time to go to breakfast, and he’d introduced him to things he never would have been rallowed to have. 

His first kiss, his first touch, he taught him how to beg and made him shake apart on his cock and dragged the fourteen year old through the streets by the hand like they were equals. He wasn’t Prince Julian here, with unwashed hair and grease from a tavern meal on his cheeks, he wasn’t even Julian. He was allowed to be someone else entirely, pulled up by the force of his own will and hands that didn’t know him but cared all the same until he could breathe, until he could scream just as much as he could sing. This was living as he had never known it, and he was greedy and gluttonous before he even turned fifteen. 

Civa didn’t care that there were words pressed into the pale of his inner thigh, kissed and bit at them and laved at them with his tongue before he swallowed the younger boy’s cock and made him sing in ecstasy.

He learned how to fuck from Civa, how to dance on tables with Drether and Irrova until they were kicked out of taverns when the sun threatened to rise on the Pontar. Lairda taught him how to use the motion of his body to influence a song while Seinart praised him until he could suck cock and eat pussy as well as he could ever croon any ballad at court. Eriza showed how to have quick fingers stickier than honey could ever be, he learned more from his peers than he ever could have his professors. 

He grew like the very weed his sister had teasingly accused him of being, and he became Jaskier with bared teeth and too loud laughter. 

Fourteen and seven weeks turned into eighteen and five days, dressed in silks that he couldn’t see half the colors of but he knew coin for the way the metal gleamed cold and hard in the light. He was supposed to be Julian, he was supposed to return home to Kerack and wear that crown and those capes and let the only friend he had ever had who hadn’t really been put an impossible weight on his shoulders like it belonged there. He was supposed to be a  _ Prince _ , but he didn’t want to ever be Julian again, not if he had any say in it. A lute well loved to his name and a reputation for wickedness behind closed doors that would have driven his family into a frenzied scandal if they only knew the start of it all, that was more than enough. He needed the open sky, blue and stretched wide overhead, he needed green grass and rolling fields and forests filled with things that should have scared him if he only had enough sense. He didn’t need to be Julian, and he didn’t want to be. 

He was worth more than the carved out place his parents had made for him, and he was better than the words carved along the tender inside of his thigh.

Jaskier took his pack and all the coin he had gathered and left Oxenfurt on foot, traveled along the Pontar with a little cluster of traders because one way or another, he would see the world. 

-

_ “I love the way you just…sit in the corner and brood.” _

_ “I’m here to drink alone.” _

-

The sun was yellow and it burned when he stared at it for too long. It had always hurt, but with this empty, off white kind of color to it that held a great deal of disappointment. Buttercups were a delicate shade of it, dandelions altogether far too cheerful and absolutely perfect where they sprouted up and swayed anywhere they wanted. Coin was golden like the bits and baubles he’d adorned himself with because he’d liked the way the grey color looked against his skin. Coin was golden and he understood why people hoarded it, jewelry brought a higher price depending on the metal. 

Geralt’s eyes were like those things, like the sun and the way that it burned, like dandelions that demanded his attention, coins that he wanted to keep all for himself. 

He didn’t know he’d been missing yellow until he didn’t want to look away.

-

The moon was silver, a lady bathed in it where she hung forever in the sky and dazzled just out of reach. Skelligan weed let off a fantastical cloud of silver plume when blown into the night sky that he wanted to catch with his fingers. Shooting stars were streaks of it across the sky, darts and dashes where the heavens couldn’t hold them any longer and they crashed down into the earth somewhere far out of reach. There was depth there, there was a mystical color that he’d never realized he missed, a shade so specific that the past felt empty without it. 

Geralt’s hair was bottled starlight, billowing clouds of too expensive weed that he shouldn’t indulge in, the ripple dance of moonlight on water where he couldn’t help but touch. 

He wanted to sink his fingers into it for something to hold, but knew better than to try. 

-

The sun first thing in the morning was red. Strawberries they gorged on when they happened to find them in the fields were bright bursts of color against the green, green grass. The silk doublet with elegant cream stitching along the edges that he’d bought back in Novigrad was scarlet and made his skin look like snow. Rubies were flecks of color like the ones pressed into his abandoned crown must have been, what an image he must have made, was this the color his mother had worn? Blood was red, red,  _ red _ , seeping and smearing and being chased away with scented bathwater or a frigid stream.

Geralt gave him red in strawberries and sunrises, Geralt gave him red in blood. Blood that painted his teeth and made his hands sticky and seeped across his skin no matter how hard he pressed at wounds that wouldn’t close like they should have. 

Geralt gave him red and he wished he didn’t love the color so much.

-

He didn’t trust Yennefer for all the songs burning in the bottom of his lungs, but he recognized that caged look in her eyes. A bird trapped behind gilded bars, a dog kept on a tether too short, they circled one another with a bright brand of  _ knowing _ that was impossible to ignore. They weren’t the same, would never be the same, but he knew her for what she was and she saw him for what he wasn’t. Comradery there even when he wanted to rip at her hair, when he wanted to scream and cry because he watched Geralt leave him for her every single night. 

The words laid into his thigh burned like the sun he wasn’t supposed to stare at. 

Geralt went to her because he loved her, Geralt went to her because he chose her, because the Witcher spat in the face of destiny so readily that Jaskier knew better than to expect anything else. He’d thought it meant something, he’d hoped, had followed blindly and lovingly and desperately behind the one man who would ever mean anything. There had to be something there, there had to be more than just his own feelings and his own wayward wishes. Geralt gave him color, and that  _ meant _ something, even if the words on his skin hurt more and more every day. 

He had hoped they meant something, but Jaskier had been wrong before and knew he would be again just like he knew where he didn’t belong. No court could keep him when the open road was his home, no crown could restrain him when his breath was his songs. He had made a kingdom and a crown for himself out of the possibilities of a future and the weeds that nobody ever loved properly. 

Those words sent him spiraling at the worst of times, chased him into the arms of others who loved him and touched him and tried to keep him in as much the same as children were wont to do with butterflies and clouds. He couldn’t hope to explain that you couldn’t hold rainclouds in your hands no matter how hard you tried and fireflies would suffocate if kept trapped in a jar for too long. He couldn’t be kept because he wasn’t theirs, and people always wanted to keep things that they shouldn’t have had their fingers on to begin with. He wasn’t something that could be caged and kept, not by the people who didn’t deserve him and certainly not by the man he wished would try. 

He didn’t trust Yennefer, and he certainly didn’t like her, but she knew something about suffering. There were scars upon her wrists that she wore like prized bangles, that she never covered with fabric unless she had to, no glamour ever claimed them. They were something that she had fought for and earned, something about her own particular dimeritium cage that she had taken by both hands and rendered to pieces until she bent it to her will.

Yennefer knew about suffering even if she never shared the story, and Jaskier wondered if she had words of her own.

What colors had she been without, what words did she wear and where were they? They weren't friends, he didn't know her and he wasn't even sure he wanted to, but Jaskier recognized longing when he saw it. He wondered what she saw when she caught Geralt like he never could. Was the Witcher just another notch, did any of her fantastical connection to Chaos and its inner workings give her an understanding of why Geralt treated him like a tool to be used until it could be thrown away?

He used to wonder what horrible words he had to say were on the man's body to make Geralt treat him the way he did. But Jaskier had seen almost every inch of flesh that the man had to offer without a touch of modesty in sight and he knew better. Geralt had no words, Jaskier had nothing to offer, Destiny had fucked him from the very start.

-

_ “I need no one. And the last thing I want is someone needing me.” _

_ “And yet…here we are.” _

-

When he was eight and his bones had first started to ache, the only safe place to run was his Grandfather’s study. The southern wing of the palace where it just barely overlooked the sea, the proud windows instead overlooked the city that would one day be his. The desk faced the door, bookshelves with tomes he had never read and settees draped with sheets meant to catch the dust. His grandfather had been a great King. He had died long before Julian was born, the office that had been sealed off to the rest of the world and left untouched.

It had been the perfect place to hide, amongst dark grey drapes that couldn’t have just been grey. His father never came here, too far from the throne room or his own personal rooms where Melusine spent much of her time. His father never talked to him, and his father's mistress rarely looked twice at anyone even if they were seen together far more often than his parents were. His father that never came here and his mother that didn’t venture from the pale confines of her sitting rooms, nobody ever came to the southern wing

He had a cake of soap that smelled like lavender with little flecks of blue flowers throughout, and he had the little bucket of water he’d carried with him, a rag that floated in its clean contents. 

He’d missed lunch, but his parents didn’t look for him when they didn’t care to find him, and Sigi knew that he disappeared from time to time when his skin itched too much. He wanted to be alone, wanted to be able to be by himself for the first time in days, weeks, because his skin burned and he didn’t want the words pressed into them. Sigi told him they were special, but Sigi already had all of his colors and refused to say who’d given them to him, Sigi didn’t get to have a say. 

Sat behind a settee and as hidden as he could manage, he’d given up trying to wash the soul ink away and had long since started to scrub himself raw instead. 

He didn’t want them, didn’t  _ want _ them, but they were still there no matter how many layers of skin he tore off. What did he do if they were burnt into his bone? He couldn’t lose his leg, Kings needed to stand tall and keep their heads high, he was supposed to lead his people, how many times did his father say that? 

Fingers gone wrinkled and pale, the room reeked of lavender soap, little flower buds floating in the murky water. The sun had climbed across the sky until long shadows stretched on the floor like they wanted to eat his feet. It would set soon, all swallowed up by the ocean and he needed to stop, he needed to get rid of the bucket and make himself look presentable enough that his parents wouldn’t look at him twice. He needed to stop, needed to fix his pants and clean up the dark grey blood that seeped along his thigh. 

“ _ Julian! _ ”

Velissa found him like that, all pale eyes and black hair, scrubbing the rag against his thigh until he’d made himself past raw. Until he bled from it, hands shaking and his chest heaving. She wrenched the rag away from him, took his hands in her own when he didn’t stop clawing at himself. If he just rubbed a little more than the words wouldn’t be there, if he just scrubbed a little better then they would go away. 

“Julian, you’ve got to stop.”

Hiccuping sobs that were so loud in the empty office all around them, they were going to get caught if he didn’t shut up. His leg hurt, his body ached but it was nothing like the way his heart hurt, the pretty butterflies in his ribs that wanted to wither and turn to dust. 

“Wh-why do they hat-hate me?”

He didn’t want to feel like this anymore, he didn’t want to ever cry this hard again. Velissa kissed both of his hands and looked like she wanted to cry for him, and that just made everything so much worse. 

“I don’t know, flower, I don’t know.”

-

Yennefer watched him sometimes, past Geralt’s shoulders and across crowded taverns. She saw something, she knew something, and he wondered how it tasted. Could she feel his heart breaking every time she kissed Geralt, could she hear the way the strings holding up his heart plucked and snapped one by one every time she bedded the Witcher? What did it feel like, could she smell the rejection that Geralt so readily gave him, or was it all overpowered by Jaskier’s own lack of self-preservation?

-

Sigibald had never been his friend.

His soulmate didn’t want him.

Colors hurt almost as much as his words did.

These three things were constants and he hated them, but Jaskier kept them close like he did his lute. Counted them on tuning pegs when he got too hopeful, when his heart felt like it might not hurt quite so bad. Those three things were all he could rely on until he died and Jaskier knew them like he knew himself. 

Sigibald had never been his friend.

His soulmate didn’t want him.

Colors hurt almost as much as his words did.

-

He wasn’t a child anymore, but he still knew what it meant to be left behind. 

Velissa had married in his second year at Oxenfurt and had refused to write to him since. His parents had never cared enough to attempt to find him after he’d abandoned his crown. None of his classmates were actually his friends as soon as the fancy of him wore off. He was a music box figurine that danced and sang under the right attention, but nobody ever wanted to keep him for long, and certainly nobody ever really cared. 

He had thought this time would be different.

He had  _ hoped _ , and he should have known by now where hope got him. 

They had walked into Novigrad eight days ago, Geralt had stayed for three hours, and then he’d disappeared just as he always did. A fistful of contracts, a particular light in his sun golden eyes, there was nothing out of the norm for how Geralt had left him, in theory. In practice, it felt far too different, it took his breath and made him want to sob. There was something wrong, something wasn’t right. Alone with his own devices and the knowledge that he couldn’t leave even though he didn’t want to stay. 

The words on his thigh had burned something fierce all morning, and his desperation had made his hands shake. 

Sleep had come and gone in fitful starts and unsure hours taken between bouts of anxiety. So tired that he hurt all the way to his bones, but it was like he didn’t know how to move properly. He couldn’t do right under those bright eyes but he couldn’t do anything without them, was this what he had been reduced to? Cruel words from a cold man, Destiny was supposed to link people who were perfect for one another. 

What had he ever done in his life to ask for a fate like this?

Geralt didn’t look twice at him unless it was to scoff or scold, but he loved her even without his words on her skin. He hadn’t given her any of the colors she’d been missing, he couldn’t have, but he touched her and he sought her out and he said her name like a caress. She didn’t bear his mark, and that must have been it, there must have been a reason there for it all. Geralt didn’t want the thing that was supposed to belong to him, but he would turn toward what he wasn’t supposed to have.

Yennefer didn’t have his words and Jaskier did, but he could fix that, he could  _ fix _ that.

Panic shallow breaths and blood slathered hands, Yennefer found him with the knife.

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

Her voice was so loud in the room, a furious light in her eyes that he didn’t understand. He was almost  _ there,  _ just a little more, just a little deeper, but the knife pulled from the meat of his thigh with a flick of her hand. It clattered across the room, speckled blood as it went and he didn’t have time to mourn its loss before she was on him. He swayed where he’d sat himself, from blood loss or from how quickly she descended upon him, her hands on his skin like his smallclothes didn’t matter. 

They were ruined anyway, what was another thing he owned ruined as opposed to everything he’d lost?

Yennefer wouldn’t let him bleed though, curling words in Elder even as he found it exceedingly difficult to stay upright like he should have. Her hands to the tender inside of his thigh and she pressed against the blood and the butchered muscle where he’d tried to cut his words out. A spark of magic, his body singing under her hands where it felt like she could pull him to pieces with a single word. His head hit the wall he’d tried to prop himself against, eyes rolling toward the ceiling as his bones trembled. As his muscles fought to convulse and he swatted weakly, desperately at her hands.

“No, no, nononon-”

“Jaskier, you’ve got to stop.”

Her eyes weren’t the right color, she was taller than Velissa certainly would have ever been. Those words still stung the same, hurt like a lacerated wound that had been bled and stitched up tight. A healing kind of hurt that he didn’t want, he sobbed when he tried to breathe and her face did some complicated crumple of emotion like she wasn’t sure what to do with him. That made them even then, he didn’t want to like her and she wasn’t supposed to be kind to him, but here they were, making the other experience things they shouldn’t.

She sealed up his leg and only the blood remained, blood and those words that he couldn’t get rid of, he couldn’t look at them, he didn’t want the-

“Oh bardling, what has destiny done to you?”

-

Feet on the ground, the weight of his lute strapped to his back, he fell into place just behind Geralt like he always did. His bones hurt, his mind raced because he never slept right anymore, he never seemed to feel better even if he closed his eyes. He would have given anything to sleep until he didn’t hurt anymore, until the back of his skull didn’t feel jagged and sharp like the coastal cliffs outside his childhood home. There was no rest in sight, not long enough to make him forget the things he didn’t want to have to remember. Worse still, Jaskier knew he didn’t want to forget, not really, not like this. 

Destiny had bound them together with colors and words, this was exactly what he deserved. 

Yennefer found them from time to time, and he hadn’t realized how much he wanted a  _ friend _ until he had one. Geralt had never been his friend, not really, no matter how hard Jaskier tried and he knew his place there, he  _ knew _ . He had learned where he belonged with that, but it was a bitter tincture that clogged up his throat. Impossible to swallow, forever cloying and clinging at the back of his tongue until it painted his teeth and his songs. 

Yennefer didn’t quite know, he liked to think she wouldn't still swan off to fuck Geralt if she did, but she knew there was someone. 

“Your crow’s feet will stick if you keep frowning.”

Scoff into his ale but everything was liquid, warm blood and bubbling laughter in his lungs. She never ventured far, not since that night in Novigrad, something like companionship in the way that she always found him in taverns and towns. A system that he didn’t understand that worked all the same, she kept eyes on him even if she never really asked. Jaskier didn’t know if he hated her or not, but he flagged down the barmaid for another tankard all the same when Yennefer sat next to him at the bar. 

“Yenna, darling, do you not have some sycophant to be smothering with your feet?”

“Why on earth would I use my  _ feet _ ?”

An incredulous expression, but she looked almost like a girl when she wrinkled her nose like that. Only ever in the anonymity of a darkened tavern did she lose bits of her shell like that, some of the stiffness in her shoulders. She had been a girl once, she must have been, and he wondered what her life had been, he wondered at the person who could claim her like a djinn’s wish had tried to do. Geralt couldn’t contain her even though he seemed bent on trying, and he wondered what it was like to deny one's destiny like that. 

What was it like to be free of a cage that didn’t want to keep you?

Another tankard slapped down on the bartop, a jug of beer where the maid couldn’t be bothered to just top off his own. Jasker caught it with a hand and filled his mug almost to its overflow point just so he could start on downing it all again. 

“Because we both know how much you love your boots.”

Amethyst blinking and she peered first at him and then down at the Toussaint leather and sturdy heel combination that gave her a few added inches where her presence gave her feet. 

“Istredd always liked them.”

Murmur into her drink like it was an afterthought and Jaskier caught his own mug a little tighter. Stared at her a little harder over the hand pounded rim of metal because she’d never given a name before. She’d certainly never given anything quite as easily as she gave that, a glimpse into the possibility of just who she was. Istredd, a name he didn’t know but it sounded Koviri in nature. Where there was a name there was a face, there was a  _ person _ , a man who no doubt knew Yennefer as well as she could ever know herself. 

Was he good to her, was he kind?

Careful mouthful of beer, Jaskier watched as she tipped her own tankard back on what he could only describe as a chug. A single instance that would quickly come to pass, but that simple motion made her less of the ephemeral powerhouse that she portrayed herself to be and just-

Just a woman having a beer and a heart to heart with a friend.

“Istredd has good taste.”

A little bubble of laughter lost into her drink, there was a smile there on her face that wasn’t for him. He saw it all the same, girlish and sweet and so unlike the creature of chaos that she presented herself as. How much of Yennefer was locked down beneath a carefully constructed mask? Why wasn’t she with her Istredd if he made her smile like that?

“You’re attempting to distract me. I was serious about your crow’s feet, he isn’t worth your complexion.”

This was friendship, wasn’t it? He nursed more beer than he should have had and she insisted that he was too good for the object of his affections. 

It  _ felt _ like friendship, but he didn’t have a very good scale of reference anymore. 

“Yenna.” Quiet words spoken into his cup and Jaskier watched her as she tipped hers back all over again. “How old do I look to you?”

The tavern was just loud enough around them that his question was nearly swallowed up beneath the rumble. The resignation heavy on his tongue could have been explained away by a lack of beer in his tankard, easily fixed by the way he caught the handle of the jug. He should eat something, should flag down the barmaid so he could put something in his stomach other than Kaedwen ale. 

Yennefer clapped a palm over the mouth of his tankard and he let out a mournful sigh. 

“Jaskier, how long have you been about twenty?”

Slow blink, jug clanked back down onto the bar top, she already knew the answer from the way her fingers curled around his mug. She looked like Roach had taken a shit in her perfect Toussaint boots, the crossroad between distaste and edging toward furious. 

“For about the last twenty years.”

_ “Fuck _ .”

She didn’t fight him when he took the beer jug again and filled both of their tankards. 

“Mhm.”

-

_ “If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.” _

_ “See you around, Geralt.” _

-

A tavern in Tigg proved to be just like any other tavern. A roof if he could get a foot in the door, a hot meal and alcohol if he could play his lute well enough to persuade the keeper. A room if he had enough control over his supposed silver tongue to procure one. People with coin to spare and the attention to be caught, he simply needed to gauge a room and play them like the beating heart lyres they were until they gave him what he wanted. 

More than enough distance between himself and that mountain, and though the xenovox Yennefer had slipped in his pack was a coveted lifeline, Cintra didn’t quite feel like it was far enough. Nearly the southernmost point, he couldn’t very well walk to Toussaint even if it sounded appealing. Felt appealing, but his feet were so leaden they may as well have fallen off and his hands ached from how much he had played in the last three hours alone. A tavern in Tigg was the same as a tavern in Pont Vanis, Guleta or Tretogor, they had beer he could drink and a bed where he could bury his head to try to forget the searing, blistering hurt that ate insistently at his heart. 

He had played well enough for a meal and boarding for both himself and his horse. The same horse that he had abandoned his table to fuss over in the stable, feed sugar cubes and apples that he couldn’t necessarily afford.

Self control had never been a strong point, this horse liked him far less than Roach ever had, but it seemed the pattern held true for his attachment to things bent on hating him. 

Jaskier’s sigh was stilted, resignation fed to the stable and the horse that didn’t care. Nobody who could say a thing in defense watched the two men that pressed upon him from the shadows, the hand clamped over his mouth or the arm locked around his throat. He couldn’t fight if he couldn’t breathe, desperation only lended to survival long enough to speed along the process. His body wasn’t given the chance to hit the stable floor, tossed up upon a shoulder with nary a sound or a witness any the wiser. 


	2. And ocean tidal blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for Geralt!

Blood made his hands a tacky, blooming red that promised to leave a stain on everything he touched. Fingerprints on the door, a palm smacked down on the counter, traces of it clung to every surface. There was evidence of where he’d been, more than the mud from his boots or the hoof prints from his horse and it would sit there long enough that the wood would be forever discolored. 

It would leech into the woodgrain like it had burrowed down into his bones, Geralt could never find enough water to wash it all away. 

He dropped the Kikimore head on the table and watched the Baron twitch back into his seat. The entire room reeked, a bitter curdle of rotten citrus fruit and urine that had begun to leak. It permeated from the man, concentrated on his skin and his silken clothes like it lived there. Maybe it did, the foul stench rode on almost every person he ever saw. He used to be able to convince himself that humans just smelled like that, that constant fear was natural when their lives were so fragile and short-winded. 

Breathless laughter and bottled Skelligan sky eyes had taught him otherwise, humans didn’t just smell like fear, humans weren’t just afraid.

It was him they feared like that, a necessary evil until he could rid them of the immediate threat. 

“ _ Melitele have mercy _ , you-why have you brought me the head?”

Fear smelled bitter, burned at his throat and his nose like a cauldron of stomach bile left over a fire. His teeth bared in response, an instinctive reaction that he had never been able to curb. The Baron only sank back further, soft fingers curling into the arms of his chair as if he needed strength. 

“So you have proof.” He knew his stature, the height he had been granted from the stretch of his bones and the musculature that his life had earned him. An imposing man, a beast of a man who needed to duck his head to enter an establishment and a voice that carried for its thunder. Intimidation was never intentional, but there were gifts he had been given that were impossible not to use. “My payment?”

If the man quivered in his cushioned chair because Geralt loomed above his desk then good, fear always made their hands work faster. 

The coin purse was almost too heavy for how the man had tossed it, it hit the desk and slouched forward as if it might just spill past its twine. Bulging with coin and fit to burst, he snatched it up before the man could second guess. The weight felt right, enough to be at least five hundred gold that he didn’t have the patience to currently count. The weight would be enough, he knew where to find the Baron should the payment not align with the contract. 

The man knew that, he may have stunk of fear but he had enough common sense to call for assistance when his people were threatened. Perhaps that sense would bleed over enough that the man wouldn’t try to cheat a Witcher.

“Orrault thanks you for your service, Master Witcher.”

Thanks sounded like trepidation, like terror and carefully veiled contempt.  _ Thank you _ had never been given freely when uttered by aldermen who paid him with every coin the village could gather. It passed the lips of wives who had lost their husbands to terrible creatures, of children who had watched their parents be devoured, of nobles who sat in their keeps and watched their subjects scramble and scream as the world did its best to destroy them.  _ Thank you _ rarely meant anything he actually wanted to hear, and there were only two individuals he had ever known to offer it without any strings or malice. 

A single instance remained, the other lost to the wind and the wild where he refused to let himself search. 

Forever quicker to leave than to actually deliver proof, it didn’t feel like he necessarily breathed until there was the sky above him once more, his boots planted in the dirt. Roach whinnied at the sight of him, her tail swishing as he swung himself into the saddle to speed the journey from the Baron’s keep. She must have sensed his exhaustion, his prompt for a walk traded in for her preference of a canter. She must have been just as tired as he, sweat across her withers and shoulders that drew flies as much as it caught the sun. 

Maybe it was the promise of sweet hay and a roofed stall in which to slumber for a night that drew her pace then.

Regardless of the source, they reached the main road of the town within the half hour. He should have just put her in her stall and left her in the hands of the stableboy, but the only other person he trusted to tend her wasn’t there. Geralt dropped from the saddle and caught himself just before he touched her, bloodied hand kept to himself. She followed with her reins loose at her neck, the stableboy giving them a wide berth with overly large eyes. 

Roach just snorted at him, an ear flicking in his direction even as she stamped forward into an empty stall while Geralt submerged his hands in a bucket of water that would need dumped anyway, and the water dyed a pale rouge where the blood lifted from his skin. He scrubbed at it quickly with short worn nails and rough fingertips, better to tell now how much of it was his and how much wasn’t. His horse wouldn’t care, the throbbing wound across his shoulder was what bled the worst and it would have to wait until he had bathed her, brushed her.

There was so much sweat across her flank that her saddle had tried to stick in place, eventually coming free from her back and loin with a squelch. Set aside and spread over the wall of the stall so it could dry, Geralt returned with a fresh bucket of water and a handful of cloth. Clean hands and a wet rag, Roach helped herself to the oats that he certainly hadn’t paid for as he gently washed her down. Careful touches to the point of her shoulders and hip where her saddle had sat, habitual check for cuts or sores or anything that would need attention. 

He found nothing and she leaned into his touch, watched him with a toss of her head and dark eyes as she chewed. Quick to brush her down, to smooth out her mane and tail until none of the tangles remained. Fingers twisting at her mane until a running braid raced through it, kept it from her eyes and away from her throat to do something for the sweat but she didn’t care, wanted less to do with the loving treatment and more to do with his pockets, nosing at him like she knew just where to find treats she shouldn’t have.

“I don't have anything right now.”

A loud snuffle as she lipped at his pocket, yellowed teeth pulling at the leather of his pants like she thought she might find something there. Hidden sugarcubes that she didn’t need to have or peppermint hard candies that he couldn’t afford, she would get whatever apples he could get his hands on in the morning. 

He caught her face with both hands then, lifted her snout until he could rest his forehead against her own and Geralt sighed. 

“Eat as much as you want, we have ground to cover in the morning.”

Her weight leaned into him and he chuckled, nudged Roach back into her stall so that he could close the gate. She tossed her head before returning to her feed and Geralt dumped his hands in the bucket of water all over again. 

He was quiet as he moved through the inn, voice pitched low and as soft as he could ever manage as he bargained with the innkeep for a bath. She waved him away with a promise that it would be brought with his supper, the best thanks she could manage given the times. 

The stairs were sparsely lit, the upstairs far quieter than the tavern below had been. The noise was lesser still once the door for the room closed behind him, long enough to take note of the empty space and pull a pair of simple trousers from his pack. His armor would need cleaned before he could sleep, but maybe if he was lucky then his skin wouldn’t have time to feel quite so raw. 

He caught the door for the bathing room just as the servant girl tried to scurry out, an exerted flush high on her cheeks from having carried buckets of water. She didn’t hesitate long, the tail of her skirts slapping against his boot and catching at the muck there even if she didn’t notice. Geralt bit back a sigh, latched the door behind him to shed his armor and resisted the urge to cast igni at the water before lowering himself into the tub, tepid already like they hadn’t had time to warm it, but any heat would make him linger when he already knew what he wanted. The viscera was roughly scrubbed from his hair until his scalp ached, skin made tender and flushed pink even as the water colored a deep red around him. It had chilled by the time he pulled himself free, shoulder already doing its best to knit back together without stitches like he perhaps should have taken the time for. 

He shook his hair out instead, water flying before pulling at his clean trousers, armor caught in a single hand. 

It stayed there until he reached the room once more, food left on the table and a tankard of ale that he hadn’t asked for. Small mercies. He settled himself on the floor with a rag to begin the trail of cleaning his armor. The larger chunks mostly, bits of flesh and gore that had clung to the best of their ability, they were chucked out of the open window until only a sheen of blood remained on the hardened leather. That blood came away as well with a rag dampened from the basin set on the table beneath the window, the water that must have been fresh quickly becoming muddled even as his armor turned as clean as he would ever manage to get it. 

The rag rinsed as best he could and spread near the hearth to dry, the basin’s bloodied contents tossed out the window just as the more solid pieces had been, Geralt set it down with a quiet little  _ clank _ . A chunk of roasted potato plucked up from the plate and smashed between his teeth, he barely managed to eat half of his food before there were running feet on the stairs. Turned to the door as they neared, plate left aside on the small little dining table, he was on his own feet when it flew open. 

“You’re back!”

A flurry of pale hair and grasping fingers, Ciri threw herself through the threshold at him with the certainty that he would catch her. 

Geralt had never dropped her once and he didn’t intend to start now, hands finding her slim ribs so he could grasp her better, catch her against his chest and give her a better vantage to hold onto him, all clinging limbs and pounding heart. Her fingers dug at his shoulders and knotted at his hair and he clasped her against his chest even as he walked them back across the room. Deposited the both of them onto the bed so she sat across his lap with her too long legs and her fly away hair damp from the kitchen and wildly curled. 

“I was worried.”

Words muffled into his shoulder and Geralt sighed, huff of breath fluttering her hair. His shoulder ached but it would be healed by morning, his food only half touched but he could finish it later. This single instance of the only light he had left needed him then, like this, and Geralt would give her everything he could. Even if it was only affection in that moment, the most concrete proof that he hadn't left her too.

"I promised I'd come back."

-

The grey sky stretched far above, pocked with puffy white clouds and slashing birds that dove from the towers after rats and rabbits. Wild tossed hair, a deep grass stain across a knee, the wind was harsh in the courtyard. It bit at his face like it wanted to try to carry him off and it gusted into his lungs like he wasn’t allowed to breathe. He was almost used to it now, the wind didn’t hurt so bad and the air wasn’t so cold.

If he told himself that enough then he would believe it, this place would be home because it had to be. 

The tie for his hair had come free and his fingers tangled in it as he tried to bind it again. Strands of brown coiled in his palm and clung to his split knuckles, smeared in the grey blood that had bloomed there from training in the courtyard. He was supposed to be better than this, the other boys had threatened to cut it while he slept if he didn’t keep it back, but it wasn’t like he didn’t try. He tried every day, to keep his hair back, to remember his studies, to not squint at the muddled words that slit his throat every time he saw a polished surface. 

A scribble that he didn’t understand, but there were words there hidden and just out of sight. 

Vaset had his words, a scrawl of them beneath his left shoulderblade. Attor had a scribble of them tucked into his ribs that cut toward his heart. Words that identified them, marked them as somebody, someone that would one day belong to somebody, anybody. They could  _ read _ theirs, and he tried not to hate them for it. 

That was hard when he was eight years old and only had these walls and this mountain, and they had a future with a person somewhere out there.

Grey skies and grey blood and grey flowers, but they said he would get his colors some day, he would find his feet eventually. 

“Geralt!”

Some day wasn’t now, he didn’t belong to anybody except Master Vesemir and his maker. Grey blood smeared across his knuckles but he shot to his feet, teetering almost too far over the edge of the battlement. He was supposed to be clearing nests from the upper walls before any of the eagles could set in for winter, not daydreaming about finding shapes in clouds that weren’t really there.

Master Vesemir stood out in the otherwise empty courtyard, the other boys having turned in from training and moved on to chores. Fegron and Drezlin might still be out in the stables even if he couldn’t see Lysand on the other end of the battlements. Maybe he had lost more time than he should have, but Eskel couldn’t have been done putting away all of the training dummies, could he?

“Master Vesemir?”

That looked like a scowl, deep cut into the man's face and that was one, either disappointed or frustrated, and he almost wanted to shrink on himself. His mother had looked like that more than once, when food was thin or when he had cut himself open on rocks that he shouldn’t have been climbing. His mother had looked like that, but his mother had given him here, had left him like she didn’t love him. If Master Vesemir looked at him like that, where else did he have to go?

“C’mon boy, it’s nearly time for supper.”

Not in trouble then if only just, and Geralt blinked down at the old Witcher before turning to find the ladder. 

“No, no, just jump, you’ll be fine.”

Brow furrowed, grey sky above him and green grass below, Master Vesemir stood there with his arms outstretched like some kind of offering. A sign of trust, because Geralt was supposed to trust these people, he was supposed to trust this man. He had saved him from the cold if only because he had been left there, but his mother loved him. She was supposed to, she’d said she did.

Maybe Master Vesemir loved him, maybe the words cut across his throat would mean something one day. 

“You won’t let me fall?”

Hesitant words but he clambered up onto the cusp of the wall anyway. Crumbling rock and jagged edges, a spill of sky above him and the loom of a mountain beneath, but Master Vesemir planned to catch him. Hands that he was supposed to give himself to, hands that would catch him, what would it hurt if he fell one more time? Master Vesemir didn’t look like he would drop him, but Geralt didn’t want to have to fall anymore. 

“Of course I won’t. Jump.”

-

“Dad?”

The fire crackled, a log splitting under the swell of its own weight to crash down into the bed of ash. It set off a shower of sparks that climbed into the sky, embers reaching for the trees and the glittering stars beyond them. The majority of the nighttime sky was shielded from view but he could see glimpses of the moon through the dense woven branches. Off in the distance loomed the smell of rain, hours off yet but biting with the promise of thunder and lightning wrapped up in the sharp burn of ozone. It would storm by noon, he would need to have them moving by mid-morning at the latest to be able to make any kind of ground. 

Her hair was damp from where she’d dunked herself in the stream, but Ciri had sat between his knees with her brush anyway. Expectant eyes and a little waggle of the brush like he didn’t know what she wanted. He’d just patted at his knee until she wriggled back, her long hair knotted over his thigh where she’d tangled it up after her bath. 

“Hm?”

She hadn’t put her boots back on, like the amount of time she’d taken to drop herself down into the creek had just been for show. Yennefer would have his head if she saw this, like he had any real control over the girl, like he got to decide things anymore. He hadn’t had any control since that damn mountain, since before it, a tavern in a low valley along the Pontar and impossibly blue eyes.

No, the best Geralt could do was take the brush that Ciri kept pushing at him and get to work on combing all of the knots out of her white blonde hair. It would need braided away from her face unless he wanted to just do this again in the morning, they wouldn’t have time to brush it with the storm that promised to roll in. Worse still, she would just insist that it didn’t need brushed, that she was fine wandering around with her hair looking like a harpies’ nest. 

He knew well what humans thought of him, but they thought Ciri his daughter. 

What sort of father didn’t take care of their child?

“Thanks.”

Quiet rumble of laughter as he sectioned her hair off, carefully pulling it into chunks to try and worm out some of the knots with his fingers. The fire crackled, her rabbit that she hadn’t finished still hot enough to drip liquid fat as she balanced her plate on her thighs. A familiar rhythm fell over them, her head tilting back and forth with every guiding press of his fingers as he slowly tamed the mess back into her usual pale curls. Comfortable in the silence as she picked at her food and he occupied his hands, Geralt hid his smile behind the turn of her shoulders. 

His fingers scratched a little at the base of her skull and she sighed, liquid and trusting where she sagged further back against him. She was going to get her dinner all over herself, she was going to ruin all of the hard work he had just done. Either wasted rabbit or she would fall asleep against his legs again so he had to carry her to her bedroll. 

“Velen or Koviri?”

“Koviri.”

Mouthful of rabbit, her manners had gone to shit and then some. He wondered what Pavetta would think if she could see her daughter now, no crown in sight and dressed in boys’ trousers with mud stained on her knees. They were her favorite pair but that wouldn’t have mattered, she would have had a favorite dress, she would have had a preferred set of painted tableware or perhaps a fan. She looked less like the Princess she had been born every day and more like his daughter with every breath, a favorite blade to be trained with and shrieking laughter. 

His daughter or Pavetta’s, she wanted a Koviri braid and Geralt cupped her head and tipped her back until he could start the twisted rope-like braid at her hairline. 

Rabbit fat on her nose, smeared across her mouth and chin, she didn’t have her shoes on and that shirt was his even though she had her own. He twisted her hair like he had dozens of times before, pulling at the strands with gentle fingers as she started to hum into her food. A pretty tune, more melancholy than the tavern songs she usually picked up, but it had a rhythm to it nonetheless. Her voice wasn’t the one he was used to hearing sing, there were no gentle strings or soft smiles that only he ever got to see illuminated in the fire. 

“A storm breaking on the horizon, of longing and heartache and lust. She’s alwa-”

A leather strip unwound from his wrist as the braid neared its end. He recognized that tune, he knew that sound. 

“Ciri.”

“Hm?” 

She tried to turn her head to look at him, corrected with a touch of his knuckles and an ache in his chest because he knew that song. The melody there was one he knew down to his bones, plucked from a hand etched lute on the billowing side of a mountain.  _ I can’t be there for you anymore _ loped along her left forearm from elbow to wrist, she carried abandonment on her skin and tried to blink at him with the same sort of heartbreak on her tongue. Secondhand hurt, she didn’t know, she had no way of knowing how tight his throat felt or how much his heart tried to pound. 

“Where did you hear that song?”

Bracing northern air and limitless skies, a question of the coast and a plea that he hadn’t understood at the time. 

A wound left to fester deep in his chest that hadn’t healed right, twenty years set and infected until it had touched his blood. Noxious and unassuming, spindling weeds and scraping flowers that had rooted from open wounds and scars gone silvery thin. A poison garden contained in flesh and painted to be as unassuming as it was beautiful, he had never stood a chance but he had tried his damndest. Vesemir had always warned him not to eat with his eyes, he always got distracted and drawn in most by the things that would only hurt him.

Ciri smiled, he could just see the plump of her cheek in the firelight as he made her face forward again. 

“A banquet once, before. Grandfather had a bard he favored, and that song always got requested after I was supposed to be in bed. The bard at the tavern a few days ago didn’t sing it as well as he did.”

Dry throat, heavy heart but he twisted her hair back and forth, wove it over itself until it spiraled along her scalp in a raised line. A tail would have to do, they had no pins to secure it but maybe she would be too tired to chew on the ends. 

“I'm weak my love, and I am wanting. If this is the path I must trudge, I welcome my sentence.” Her voice wasn’t the same, sweet and lifting with the high spill of a courtly Cintran accent that she still hadn’t been able to shake. It sounded less like a heartache and more like a morose lullaby, a mournful deathbed hymn that he shouldn’t have been able to hear. “Give to you my penance, garrotter, jury and judge.”

His hands were steady, so why did his heart feel like it might crack out of his chest?

-

His skin ached, made tight and small like a wet glove from the potions that still churned through his blood. They had been necessary at the time, when exhaustion had made him sluggish and his reactions had dulled. Head ringing but it had all been for a reason, Great Sea water doing its best to settle in the bottom of his lungs. He’d managed to scoop most of the wax out of his ears already, but his skull still felt ready to burst, his heart still tried to beat a wardrum out of his chest. 

On his hands and knees in the sand north of Bremervoord, he coughed like he might lose his lungs. Like his body intended to pull itself inside out, spine curving as his gloved hands curled in the sand. There wouldn’t be enough retching to get the taste of the ocean out of his mouth, there wouldn’t be enough coughing to make it so he caught his breath. Instead, Geralt heaved and wheezed where he had fallen on the shore, bent low until his head nearly touched the ground. 

The sirens were dead, slaughtered one after the other until only their corpses bobbed in the water. Larger predators would soon move in, things he would never be paid enough to kill would devour their remains and make temporary homes in these warmer waters for the next few weeks, months. The sirens slaughtered, the young man he was supposed to retrieve wheezing on his belly on the beach, they were alive. Alive, and Geralt hated the ocean, the salt he could taste on his skin and the burn of it in his lungs as he heaved.

Maheil would live even if Geralt felt like he was still choking, sputtering out seawater and whatever else had tried to settle in his diaphragm. 

Hands cupped his jaw, cradled his face and swept his ocean-tangled hair from his eyes until he saw too long legs and gossamer firelight skirts. Hot points for fingers that barely touched him but scorched all the same, guiding pressure until he was pulled up onto his knees. She hurt to look at, made his eyes burn like he had spent too much time staring up at the cloudless sky. Sharp teeth partially hidden behind berry colored lips, delicate features accentuated by pale red-tinged hair and luminous eyes, the woman was just as ethereal here on this beach as she had been back in that forest. Just as ephemeral as when he had first taken the contract, because one didn’t deny a contract from the fae. 

“You performed wonderfully, Witcher.”

Her voice touched like wind chimes within the back of his skull, whimsical and tinkling until his ears started to ring all over again. His blood shimmered with it, fizzy water bubbling like he’d drunk an entire Cidaris brewery. He shouldn’t have looked at her this long, the whispering of his hindbrain screamed for how he stared at her inhuman eyes and her firelight ring of lashes. All those teeth when she smiled, he knew enough about fae to know he never wanted to be involved, but her hands held his jaw and his body was so weighted by the water. 

“You brought back my son when they tried to steal him from me.”

Cooing, fingers tracing his cheekbones and his ears, her nails were opal gleaming daggers that should have tangled in his hair but didn’t. The Queen cradled him like a mother would a wayward child, his face upturned into the sun where it haloed her fiery hair.

“For this, I will return what was stolen from you, and give you back to she who loves you.”

Never accept payment from the fae, always decline in whatever way they could manage, but between the potions trying to turn his blood toxic and the exhaustion from the battle he couldn’t seem to get his tongue to work. Maybe she wouldn’t let him, her hands upon him and something twelve-toned and delicate in her voice like chimes and singing on the brisk sea breeze. Never trust a fae, never accept payment, but it took more strength than it should have to simply look at her, let alone try to speak.

Her smile was almost  _ loving _ , maternal even with all its teeth and the deep violet stain that spilled from the inside of them in an inked line down her chin. She was as beautiful as any of them ever were, and Geralt expected to be burned with how she pressed that mouth against his forehead in a kiss. 

He watched the blue start to dry up in her eyes instead when she pulled back, the fire of her hair begin to wither and dim. 

A pop in his ears, a flashfire of lightning white in his vision and he fell to hardwood floors, and Ciri crying out like something had scared her. His entire body wracked with tremors, fists balled against the floor as he pushed himself upright- the inn, she had returned him to the inn, the bed he had paid too much for and a tub in the corner that he didn’t even want to look at. 

“Dad!”

Soft hands on his forearm, his shoulder, Ciri crowded into his personal space like she thought she was half her size. Like she meant to try to fit under him, or maybe tear his armor off, he couldn’t tell if her hands shook when she pulled his hair back or if that shaking was him. Both probably, the likelihood of both was stronger than anything else. There was a burn of panic trickling across his tongue, desperate and ready to spill down his throat if only he just swallowed. 

“What happened, why aren-”

Forced upright enough that he could see her and he wished he hadn’t. A savage, wet sound in his throat, not a growl and something terrified instead of meant to cause terror. Her tunic was yellow, a soft sunshine color that had been highly impractical but she rarely ever asked for anything. A little big and a little long, bought with the intent for her to grow into it, he knew it was yellow. He  _ knew _ her tunic was yellow, but it was a riverbottom grey instead, stonewashed and fog drained where there should have been a color there. 

One hand fisting in her tunic before he could help himself, a burning in his throat and a burning in his eyes even as he clenched them shut. Ciri pressed against him like she thought she might support him, like she would have if she could. That meant more than he could tell her at that moment, more than he probably had and Geralt doubled over with a groan as his skull began to violently throb. 

“C’ll Yen, c’l-call Y- _ ngh _ .”

She screamed again, something screamed, a shrill twisting of it between his ears as his eyes rolled. Ciri couldn’t keep him upright then, couldn’t hold him as he felt his body start to twitch and writhe. The world was nothing but too tight skin and spiraling pain that festered in his throat, jaw trying to unhinge upon a roar that he couldn’t breathe deep enough to birth. He choked instead, silver dagger buried hilt deep until it scored the back of his throat, caught the nerves and the membranes, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe but he shivered and shook, eyes rolling as his body fought against something he couldn’t see, an enemy he couldn’t find for all that he could feel it. 

He would die here, choked on his own tongue in a tavern where he hadn’t even wanted to be, too far south with his daughter left alone. 

Two warm hands on his face, soft touch and the scent of flowers against his nose. A little shake that rolled his head around as he groaned, heavy limbed and trying to smack at those very hands to make it stop. 

“Stop that.”

Cool voice, crisp and sharp and damn it but he’d done that to himself. He’d asked for her, demanded, he didn’t know what else he expected Ciri to do. 

Violet eyes stared down at him like a pinned insect while Ciri stood just behind her, xenovox clutched tight in both hands and her tunic cold and grey. She’d done exactly what he’d told her to, but damn everything it hurt to look at her. Her tunic was supposed to be yellow, the ribbon looped around her wrist the same, but both were colorless and empty. Stripped of their Kaedwen sun warmth until they looked like the winter sky instead, his Ciri should never wear grey. 

Pink flushed cheeks and swollen eyes, she’d cried at some point while he’d been out of his mind. 

He wanted to touch her face, hold her until she burrowed into his chest where he could keep her safe, but his body ached. His hand went wide when he tried to push at Yennefer, throat burning still. She would complain about the floorboards against her knees, the state of her dress if given the chance, he knew she would. She usually did, any reason to bite at him was enough of a reason, she would take whatever excuse she would get. 

Critical eyes and a flat mouth, she hadn’t started to scold him yet. 

She caught his jaw with a warm, solid grip instead, forced his chin up because that was what women were wont to do to him today. Until he lost sight of Ciri where she stood, until his heart seized all over again as soon as he couldn’t see her wide green eyes. Jaw clenched tight to keep from grasping Yennefer's wrist, the tips of her fingers prodded at the front of his throat like some sort of test. Tight, tender skin and the hum of her magic through the air with just enough of a pull that he could feel the chaos crackle of it on his nerves. Could smell it, but there wasn’t any comfort there until she turned his head to the side and he could see Ciri where she stood.

Where she sat, legs folded awkwardly under herself like she’d just fallen where she stood. Xenovox still tight between her palms like Yennefer might disappear if she let it go, she watched Geralt like  _ he _ might vanish if she didn’t. He could smell her fear, rotten lemons and the overflow of salt where she hadn’t stopped crying, but there was so much more. Everything was sharp with magic that didn’t birth from Yennefer’s own hands, bright like falling stars in a winter's night and he groaned.

“Geralt, what did she give you?”

Jaw pulled back around so Yennefer could see his eyes and she stared, inspected him like the ocean hadn’t tried to drown him enough. He would rather the floor than the water, but he would rather the bed than the floor even if there seemed to be no plan to try to move him. 

“ _ Geralt.” _

“She said she would...return what was stolen and give me back to-”

A hand thrown clumsily in Ciri’s direction because she loved him, he knew she did. He would have gone anywhere else if she hadn’t. His wide eyed daughter that needed to stop crying, but he needed to find the strength to get off the floor if he wanted her tears to dry up. How could he expect her to be strong when he couldn’t even feel his legs?

“Of course she did. Oh you stupid,  _ stupid _ man.” A hush to her voice, like she didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or try to scold him. She patted his cheek instead, a bit more gentle than she usually would. He could feel the faint tremble in her fingers, her pupils blown a touch too wide. “You fucked everything up, didn’t you?”

A press of her nails, steely and bitter and as unrestrained as she looked with her unkempt hair and her sleepless eyes. Yennefer was  _ worried _ , distraught by something before she’d even appeared in their little rented room.

“Wha-”

“Oh for Lilit’s  _ sake _ .”

Harsh pull and he was upright, seated on the floor even as everything tried to spill sideways, seawater sloshing between his ears enough to make him gag. 

“Yenne-”

She shoved something against his chest, smooth and cold, the mirror taken from the little table with the wash basin. He clutched it with too tight hands for fear of dropping it, another thing he would have to pay for that they couldn’t afford, and watched her stalk across the room. Pulled at her hair and put distance between them like she didn’t trust him, like she didn’t trust herself. Bare feet on rough wood floors, her dress that of a simple deep green cotton, she looked nothing like the fantastical sorceress that he knew her to be and more like a woman, frazzled and quietly enraged. 

“You have no idea the things you’ve done. You don’t know how much I had to watch him and I didn’t even know it was about  _ you _ .” Hand smearing over her mouth, wide eyes and a heaving chest and she looked nothing like the composed creature she had made herself into. A force of nature instead, the desperate and beside herself that she had been all those years ago with that amphora painted on her belly. “He tried to cut you off of him just to give you peace, and you just...you just kept coming back to me.”

She spoke like it hurt, pained something deep and primal and familial within her soul. 

“Look at yourself, and then spit at Destiny again.”

Motioned to the mirror with a flick of her hand and her eyes were bright, damning things. 

Yet, nothing she did would be worse than the sharp cut of his throat. There used to be a charcoal like smudge there when he was younger, like he’d smeared soot on his palms and rubbed them against the front of his throat. Impossible to read, shadowed and faded and scribbled a thousand times over itself, he had been told not to hope, he knew better.

_ See you around, Geralt. _

The craig of a mountaintop and the limitless spread of a sky overhead, the delicate scent of chamomile and woodsmoke and rosin. A too soft voice made jagged with hurt, tumbling footsteps and a desperate, unspoken plea to be heard, to be forgiven where no transgression had been made. But those flowers had wilted anyway, smoke and rosin washed away by a torrential rain where he’d been left alone on that mountain. Where he’d chased away the only real good thing he had ever hoped to hold until he was alone.

There was a wounded animal in the room, something hidden under the bed or beneath the floorboards. It cried out and whined with the frantic sounds of a creature cornered and injured, the kind he usually took mercy on and put out of their misery. He needed to find it, he needed to take care of it before it upset Ciri more than he already had. Heartbroken scrawl across the front of his throat and his daughter crying, but there was some miserable thing trapped in here with them.

“Geralt.”

Wild eyes swung from the mirror to Yennefer where she’d pushed away from the wall, where her own eyes had gone wide and her mouth firm. Why wasn’t she taking care of it, why wasn’t she helping?

“Geralt, it’s okay.”

_ Oh. _

Oh, that sound was him, he was the wounded animal, he was the terrified creature that couldn’t stop its mournful crying. 

A flare of chaos within her violet eyes and his body fell, everything dark and soft and warm before he even hit the floor. 

-

His throat itched, burning words that he hadn’t had in decades that were suddenly stamped into his skin again, a soul deep brand that he had been without for so long that it was strange to have it once more. She’d taken the mirror back but it was like he could still feel them, he hadn’t touched them in over a lifetime but they were solid now, they were real. They had settled because his soulmate had finally, finally been born, because he had one, because Jaskier was real.

“When did they take him?”

Jaskier was real and Jaskier was gone, left out to the wind and the wild and caught in the poisoned snare of Nilfgaard. 

Jaskier had been  _ taken _ , and Geralt hadn’t even known. He had hoped he’d returned to Oxenfurt and the Academy, that he’d entrenched himself in the artistic splendor and the rush of life until he’d forgotten about Geralt entirely. He’d prayed to gods he didn’t believe in that the bright eyed man had gone to Novigrad, that he’d swept himself up in the hustle and bustle and culture of city life until he’d found whatever person had a right to his soul and his smiles. Places he would belong, places that would have made sense. 

He had been foolish, utterly, absolutely foolish because there had been no Oxenfurt and there had been no Novigrad. 

“Just past a fortnight.”

Fifteen days, sixteen or seventeen, less than twenty but more than it should have been. He knew the horrors of man first hand, the cruelty they could unleash in a fit of boredom or rage, false entitlement from a bloodline that would dry up and fade. Jaskier had been gone for days, and Geralt felt nausea swell in his belly all over again. 

“And you didn’t think t-”

“I only just found him when I was summoned.” There was her bite, there was her frustration, an unpainted face and an appearance more undone than he had ever seen her before. Like she had exhausted herself and then some, pulled from whatever reserves she had that he would never understand to keep herself upright and moving. “I can’t stage a rescue when half of the party is frothing at the mouth on the floor, Geralt. Do keep up.”

There shouldn’t have to be a rescue, she shouldn’t have had to find him. Jaskier shouldn’t have been in danger and Geralt shouldn’t have opened his mouth, Vesemir had always scolded him for his temper and the things he choked up inside himself. Jaskier wouldn’t be in this situation if Geralt had just said something, he wouldn’t be hurt if Geralt had just opened his mouth. 

Because he would be hurt, he would, Geralt knew damn well the things that prisoners were forced to endure. 

That Jaskier would be forced to endure, that his soulmate would be forced to experience all because he hadn’t-

“What are they?”

She didn’t need any explanation, not when she looked at him like that. Too knowing and vicious for all that she had been loving, had tucked Ciri into the bed with a hot cup of tea and a sleeping drought. She’d even waited until the girl had fallen asleep, for Yennefer was many things, but he had never thought he would see her manage to be kind. To be loving. 

She spoke of Jaskier as if they were friends. 

Her words cut and her tongue curled and Geralt almost wished he hadn't asked. Almost, because he deserved this. Almost, because he had done this to them. He remembered harsh mountain rock and thinking that his heart was breaking.

"If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands."

Eyes shut tight enough and maybe he could blur out that memory. Jaskier's eyes were blue, a particularly brilliant shade of them that he never let himself look at for too long. He'd seen the man laugh in delight and sneer with contempt but never had he seen him cry. He had cried on that mountain, that gods-damned mountain and Geralt had smelled salt and melancholy the entire walk back to Roach. His eyes were blue, that doublet had been red, the flowers he had named himself for were yellow and tenacious for their resilience and their cheer. The colors he'd wrapped himself in until Geralt couldn't find the strings for the start of them and he'd taken them when he'd left.

Were his eyes still blue, would he still laugh with his whole body, or had they taken that brilliance from him already?

"When do we leave."


	3. With a spill of crimson blooming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tada~ Thank you for all the comments and kudos, darlings!

Ciri had been left in Novigrad under Triss’ watchful eye, her hair enchanted to a dark brown and her skin richly littered with freckles by the aid of a glamour disguised as a bangle hidden within a cluster of them on her slender wrists. They had jangled when she moved that hand, bands of silver that probably  _ weren’t _ that clanked against one another when she hugged him. She didn’t look like his cub even if she was, the same wide eyes and full cheeks where he went out of his way to keep her as fed as he could. 

He’d wanted to take every bangle from her wrist and hide her in a cupboard somewhere, but he’d kissed her head and stepped through a portal instead. 

The room before him was nothing more than a ruin, crumbled stone that had been burst open by manpower and time. There may have been a window on that wall at some point, but now there wasn’t even a wall, collapsed rock fallen away until he could stare out into the heaving downpour and the valley far below. A flooded riverbed that had swollen and spilled over its banks, the fallen skeleton of a rampart that wouldn’t offer any protection from anything anymore. There was a birds’ nest balanced precariously on what remained of the exterior wall, long abandoned and falling apart. 

This had been a fortress once, this had towered somewhere on a land that didn’t have a use for it anymore. 

Miserable and decrepit and wet, this wouldn’t be the last stop for whatever patrol had broken from the army to take him. This wasn’t Nilfgaard, but it was somewhere, and Jaskier was here.

“Where are we?”

She wore pants now, fitted and dark, boots where her feet had been bare. The young woman that she had been in the inn had been armored and boxed up and set aside, replaced with the sharp eyed force of nature that he was used to. Yennefer grinned at him with something biting and mean, electricity dancing between her fingertips already. 

Was that her bloodlust he smelled, or his own?

“Northern Nazair near Marnadal Stairs. They have no mage and there’s less than twenty of them by my count.” Bitter and cruel, her gaze cut to him before she left the ledge for the doorway instead. “He was meant for information, not bait.”

They hadn’t expected anyone to come for him. 

Yennefer was gone by the time he left the room, disappeared somewhere overhead on silent feet. He could smell her rage just beneath the linger of her perfume, but whatever element of surprise they had managed to have wouldn’t hold once the first cry rang out. Screams would echo in a place like this, cold stones and empty halls with nothing to catch the sound. What soldiers there were would be on them readily enough with that very first wail if she gave them long enough to find their breath. 

She had gone to the upper levels, so he would go down. 

He moved with silent feet and steel drawn, straining for a scent that he knew, a heartbeat he recognized. Jaskier was here, somewhere, if only Geralt could find him. 

Few soldiers and maybe he wouldn’t be heavily guarded, maybe they would have left him alone. Stupid hope and he knew better, interrogation walked hand in hand with torture and he knew well the stories of what happened when Nilfgaard took people. There were no survivors even if breathing bodies were found, hollowed husks better given a merciful death in the place of loved ones that had been taken. Those that were found were never the same and he burned at the thought of those bright eyes clouded over, that laughter lost before he had had the chance to try and redeem himself.

Jaskier would be fine because he had to be, even if Geralt had to find a dozen djinn to make it so.

The first level was quick enough, a single soldier with his back to the stairs and his body poised in a stretch. Half armored, at leisure like a gift. He refused to question and struck forward, sword spearing through the crease in the man's armour at his shoulder to stab through his chest. He fell with a shout, slid off of the blade to hit the floor and he’d been right, that cry rang out with an echo. It was answered with clanging armor and raised voices, they knew they weren’t alone now. 

Screaming overhead accompanied by the buzzing spill of magic; Yennefer had found a target or three. Heavy footfalls pounded in his direction from further along the hall, from down the flight of stairs. Two soldiers spilled out of a single room, only one with a helmet, and he bared his teeth at them in a feral mockery of a grin. They stank of fear, molded lemons and stale sweat as he advanced, their swords drawn and a mostly disintegrated wall behind them. Swords drawn, one of them charged, a building cry on his lips like the sound bolstered him even where his comrade faltered. A quick, heavy handed Aard sent them back into the stone, through it with a heavy crunch and a fading wail as they fell to the grounds below. He dove for the stairs instead, away from the fresh sunlight and into the dark as cries rang out above him. 

Yennefer had found her prey, he needed to find Jaskier. 

Another met him on the landing, half blind and swinging his sword wildly. Geralt ducked, the clang of steel bouncing off stone resounding from just overhead. A clattering sound and a shower of sparks, he drove forward with his shoulder and threw the both of them off of the landing. The man’s sword lost with a sharp sound but there were desperate hands grappling at his chest, his throat. He felt the snap of a vertebrae as the man hit the stairs first, broke their fall even as it broke his back. Geralt sneered down at the pained shock on his face and surged off of his prone body, leaving the man to his agony in the dark. 

Blood filled the air, cloying copper that muddled every other scent. Rotten citrus fear and the sharp tang of urine, burnt meat and the murk of stale water, but it was there. There was a touch of smoke there under all of that blood, a hint of chamomile so faint it was nearly gone. The trail of it led him down the hall to a heavy door, no voices found but there were two heartbeats just behind it. One nearly frantic, the other sluggish and soft as the door gave easy beneath his foot. 

The soldier grinned at him, a madman with burning eyes and grey blood splattered across his face. Vicious in how he grinned, how the cruel edged blade in his hand dripped liquid grey along the line of it. The man was nothing more than a monster that shouldn’t have been, a creature worse than any necrophage would ever be, but the man wasn’t his concern. The man didn’t matter when he should have been dead, would be dead. 

“Ah, Witcher! What a lovely surprise!” That too wide mouth curved further still, all teeth and crazed glee. He threw his arms wide as if in greeting, dagger glinting in the thin light. “We weren’t expecting you, were we, my friend?”

The hand without the dagger fisted deep in Jaskier’s hair and shook him roughly. He swayed like a half stuffed doll, too limp and covered in more wounds than skin. Flayed patches across his bare thighs and calves where they had taken a whip to him, a blade. He smelled of pain and infection and more unfiltered panic than Geralt had ever smelled in a single room. So much grey blood along his skin that everything smelled like it. 

Legs limply splayed like he couldn’t even try to hold himself upright and Geralt could see those words, high against his inner thigh where they lay amidst violent bruises shaped like hands. 

“I’m afraid the prince isn’t feeling very  _ chatty _ .” 

A dislocated shoulder from the uneven fall of his arms, broken ribs with the rattle of his breathing. Crooked fingers and visible bone snapped through the flesh of his forearm, his wrists were shackled together against his front with a dried crust of blood from beneath the manacles like Jaskier had fought against them. A metal clamp encircled his skull, covered his eyes in a vice like bind that had bitten into the skin of his temples, spilled grey down his temples and cheeks. 

“Let him go.” His heart in his throat but his voice held his rage, his hatred as he snarled in the doorway. The man held Jaskier like he knew his weight by now, like he knew his body and just how much he could pull it to get what he wanted. A step forward and the man drew him higher with that damned grin, knees off the ground and a wet whimper on his lips. “You got me, you don’t need him.”

That grin stretched impossibly wider, split the man's face in two like some sinister fiend, and he laughed like a crack of lightning. 

“You’re right, I don’t.”

“Gera-”

His name became a gurgle, that blade scored deep across the front of Jaskier’s throat with an instant flood of grey down the front of him. 

_ “No!” _

Jaskier’s body fell in a heap, bound hands pressing at his throat as the soldier laughed still. Launched himself at Geralt and laughed even when a snap of Igni consumed his body with flames. The stench of burning flesh filled the small room, crackling fire beside them as Geralt threw himself down beside Jaskier. 

He couldn’t see his eyes for the damn clamp but he could smell his tears, a single hand wrapping tight around his throat to staunch the flow of blood. It spread between his knuckles and under his palm, Jaskier gurgling and grasping at him all the while. His own eyes burned, heart pounding as hard as it could manage as panic spiraled through him. 

“You’re okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got yo-Yennefer!”

Wheezing breaths and grey bloodied teeth, Jaskier weakened beneath his hands even as his blood continued to spill. 

_ “Yennefer!” _

-

Rogne was a quiet town, set in the cradle of snow capped mountains and thick forest. A clean little lake just beyond the cabin, a small community less than two hours ride from Kaer Tolde at a punishing pace, nestled in the very heart of the Ard Skellige amidst readily armed warrior citizens who hated the dark shadow of Nilfgaard almost as much as he did. They had been gracious enough to welcome them, Crach more than willing to offer aid, and Geralt had tucked his little group away in that valley. 

Jaskier slept for two weeks, kept under by Yennefer’s magic and the grip of his injuries. The infection had set into his blood, made him delirious and almost beyond help. His bones had been set and mended, the lacerations on his skin pulled down into silvery scars. More than fifty along the line of his back and thighs, they had sliced through the tendons in his ankles to keep him from running if given the chance. Geralt had counted every scar as he swept a clean rag across Jaskier’s skin, the circling of them at his wrists and the bite at his temples. 

A sweeping scar cut across the front of Jaskier’s throat and the desperate, scared boy of Kaer Morhen that still lived inside him cried at the way that they matched. 

He didn’t wake in those two weeks but he spoke with his fever and cried through the night. He pleaded with a Velissa not to leave him, promised a Sigi that he would be good, just give him a chance, he wouldn’t throw his crown anymore. He tripped over himself with half formed sentences that were almost impossible to follow. 

He cried for Geralt most of all, he cried and cried and cried until Geralt wished he would just sleep. Apologies for every single thing Jaskier thought he had ever done wrong, febrile ramblings that he would cut deeper this time, he would get rid of them so he was better. Warbling singing from a heavy tongue about longing and heartache, Jaskier lay in a perpetual pool of his own sweat and tried to beg forgiveness for demons that he shouldn’t have had to shoulder.

It didn’t matter how many times he cleaned the tears from his face or tried to soothe him, the semi coherent mumbling never stopped. 

If Yennefer noticed the tear treks on Geralt’s face then she didn’t say anything, her touch soft every time she checked her patient for any sign of his infection worsening. She would slip her fingers through his hair and touch his mind, but whatever she found often led to a furrowed brow and a damp, sorrowful light in her eyes. 

She didn’t press him to sleep, and Geralt was grateful.

-

“What if I don’t meet them?”

A snuffle, head turning sideways, and Geralt squinted in the dark. Thin windows across the longest wall but barely any light filtered through, he could barely see any of the other boys in their beds. The moon wasn’t on their side tonight, their half of the dorm still and quiet. It should have been quiet, they were supposed to be quiet and he knew first hand how cross Master Isoveld would be if he heard them whispering. 

He didn’t want to have to scrub the dining hall again. 

Muffled and wet like he’d pressed something over his mouth, Drezlin’s voice was louder than it should have been. They were going to get caught, he didn’t know who was on night rotation because it wasn’t his turn to know. 

Hands under himself and Geralt heaved upright, too long curls flopping into his eyes. Drezlin’s bed was two away from his, so if he could hear him clearly then the rest of them could too. The other boy never did well at being quiet, and there were only so many times he could be scolded before the rest of the pack followed his example. They were going to get caught, it was just a question of how long they had. 

“Drezi.”

Eskel had gotten out of his bed and edged closer, like he wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to say but like he knew he needed to say something. 

The other boy's name wasn’t the right thing, not with how he started crying, gulping sobs that made Geralt’s heart hurt to hear. Lysand muttered something from his side of the room but he didn’t let that stop him, pulled his blanket and the ragdoll that he wasn’t supposed to still have off of his bed. The stone floor was cold under his bare feet and it only made him move faster. They were going to get caught if Drezlin kept crying but Geralt would scrub every hallway if it meant his friend stopped crying. 

Blanket tossed over the both of them, ragdoll stuffed against the other boy’s chest and Geralt climbed into his bed with him. Their knees knocked together and Drezlin’s shirt was wet from crying, but he just burrowed himself against the other boy’s chest. 

“You will, and they’re going to love you.”

He could see Eskel in the thin light past his shoulder, watched as he turned his head to the door before putting himself in the bed with them too. Barely big enough for one boy but they could make three of them fit, an elbow in his ribs and Drezlin practically crushed between them. He shook the whole bed when he cried like that, stuffed his wet face under Geralt’s chin, but it quieted his tears. Eskel reached out so far beneath the blankets that he could tangle his fingers in Geralt’s shirt, held on like Geralt clung to his own. 

Drezlin sniffled quietly between them, shaking and snot faced but that was fine. Fegron snored hard enough that maybe nobody out in the hall would notice if they walked by. Geralt held onto Eskel a little tighter, pinned Drezlin between them a little more just to be safe. He couldn’t get them caught if nobody could hear him crying, and he would never let one of his brothers be upset and alone if he could help it. 

Eskel understood, but Eskel had always been his best friend, Eskel always knew.

“Don’t let Master Josef hear you.”

The first Attor had spoken since Vaset hadn’t come back and his voice sounded rough like he’d been chewing on rocks all afternoon.

His fingers were going to leave bruises on Geralt’s ribs and he wondered what color they would be. Purple and blue, everyone said bruises were purple and blue, but he could only press at that empty grey so much before it just spread across his skin. 

“Master Josef can go fuck himself.”

Eskel’s eyes were still green in the dark, and Geralt held on tighter when the other boy spoke.

-

Ciri had made friends here among the village children. She played out in the fields and the frost with them most days, dirt on her face and leaves in her hair. He braided it every night but that didn’t tame the curls any, wild and unbrushed no matter what he did. She had the bangle with her still, just in case, but she hadn’t worn them since Triss had brought her by boat a few days prior. 

He didn’t want her to ever wear it again, but he would do anything to keep her safe. 

“You scare the shit out of me.”

He would get scolded for not using a chair, but it was easier to sit on the floor. He could reach things better, the bowl of water to wash his loves face and the bread that he had slowly been eating. Sitting on the floor put him closer to Jaskier, made it just a simple motion to lace their fingers together even as he tipped forward. Chin pressed into the edge of the mattress so he could watch the rise and fall of his chest, the best reminder he could have that Jaskier was  _ safe _ even if he wasn’t conscious. 

“You bruise easily. You get sick, and tired, and you climb things no matter how much I tell you not to. You follow me no matter how much I tell you not to, like you don’t care. It’s like...nothing scares you.”

Rise and fall, sleep slow breaths and fever warm skin, he was quiet now that the worst of it had passed. 

Yennefer had promised the worst of it had passed.

“You  _ laughed _ when that Archgriffin tried to take off with you back in Creyden. I fucking told you to stay at the inn, or down in the bushes, but you never listen. I had to give you stitches and I thought I was going to be sick, but you just...you thought it was funny. You said you were alive and that was reason to laugh.”

Deep breath taken and held, he tipped his head down until he could press his forehead to the bed. Geralt sighed into it, held Jaskier’s hand like he’d never let himself do before this and breathed in the scent of him. Chamomile and woodsmoke made warm with sleep, it missed the rosin spice that had always been there, almost soured instead by his fever that had just broken. 

He smelled like  _ home _ , and it had been so long since Geralt had had one of those. 

He’d almost ruined it, or maybe he had.

“I didn’t know where you’d come from, but I was ready to find a way to ship you back. You weren’t even twenty but I...fuck, I’ve loved you since you came up to my table with that stupid line about having bread in your pants. You light up a room any time you laugh and there are always people trying to get your attention and you just...you sit with me, and you smile like I make you happy.” The blanket ruffled when he chuckled, soft and uncertain. It was warm here, safe with his eyes closed and Jaskier healthy and hale. “I’m just a Witcher, I don’t...”

“You were never just  _ anything _ .”

Soft spoken words, sleep addled and rough as the hand that held his gave a gentle squeeze. 

His throat burned just long enough for him to jerk upright, touch a hand to the front of it like he could see those words rewrite themselves. He would never be so lucky, not for that, but Geralt was blessed to watch the world take back its colors. His eyes filled with a vivid, luminous cornflower blue and his mouth flushed pink, things Geralt hadn’t let himself miss until he realized he could have them. 

Jaskier watched him with heavy, tired eyes, and smiled at him like Geralt had given him the sun. 

Heart in his throat and he brought his hand closer, pressed his mouth to the back of it and held it there, breathed. Listened to the steady throb of his heart and felt the calm he never let himself reach for. This was what he had been denied, this was what he had kept from himself, and Geralt breathed deep. His eyes stung but he refused to look away, stared at Jaskier in the warmth of a Skellige cabin where he would keep him for the rest of his life if he could. 

He braced his free hand on the bed instead, rose until he could curl over Jaskier’s prone form and nudge their noses together. Press that hand to the bed beside his head and watch him blink, drink in the way that he smiled at Geralt like he never wanted to stop. Maybe he wouldn’t if he was lucky, another blessing he didn’t deserve but he would take it if only it was offered. He would never say no when Jaskier looked at him like that, smelled like that. 

Their mouths fit together like they had been made for it, crafted for one another by Melitele herself. Jaskier touched at his jaw to keep him close, kiss him even with exhaustion in his limbs, holding him close like the only home Geralt would ever need. 

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be you.”

It was with a sharp inhale and wide blown eyes that Jaskier stared at him as his words rewrote themselves, and Geralt tasted the way he laughed. 


End file.
